CARPÉ THE F**K OUT OF THAT DIEM

All of your friends seem to have their lives in check when your idea of being organised is having a full ice cube tray.

By Elizabeth Earle

That’s it. Your teeth are gritted and your fists are clenched.

“That’s it,” the thought becomes a growl, and suddenly your tongue is pushing against the back of your teeth, your jaw locked in a hard line.

You have had enough of everything fighting against you. You just want to be a person. You just want to be able to be a good goddamn person.

But things stack against us. People act against us. People let us down.

That interview you thought went so well fell through.

Your mate said they’d call you back when you needed them but they never did. The person you thought was your mate, anyway.

All of your friends seem to have their lives in check when your idea of being organised is having a full ice cube tray.

Every time you go out drinking, it seems pointless. Your love life is non-existent, and your sex life is something you laugh bitterly at. That voucher for the cinema is a constant reminder of a disappointment you just can’t forget. Your favourite song now reminds you of the friend you don’t talk to anymore. You’ve tried so hard. You’ve tried so god damn hard with people.

Until you start to believe that you can only rely on yourself.

To hell with people.

To hell with trying.

To hell with all of it.

STOP. Take a breath. Think.

These thoughts are something we’ve all gone through. This is part of being human. It’s ok to feel like this. Being happy when things seem to so easily pile up against us can be difficult. You feel like Jon Snow at Battle of the Bastards, bodies upon bodies crushing down on your shoulders until you’re not sure you’re going to see the light of day again. And if you don’t get the G.O.T reference yet, then YOU HAVE SO MUCH JOY AHEAD OF YOU.

It’s okay to not always be happy. It’s okay to feel like you are struggling. Accept that. These are obstacles. It’s how you handle those obstacles that counts. You sometimes have to live in the shadows to appreciate the light.

It’s difficult to create something good out of a world of chaos. But it’s a beautiful world of chaos- there’s so many conflicting emotions and stories in every person’s life that it makes me nauseous to even think about describing them.

So let’s not.

The point of this snippet is to reach out to you.

YOU, right there, sitting on your sofa, reading this as the advertisements span time between the programs on TV you don’t even care about. YOU, waiting for your mate to arrive even though she’s 30 minutes late and you’re not sure whether she’s going to cancel on you for her boyfriend again. YOU, who picked up your phone out of curiosity to read the article whilst making a coffee, wishing it was probably rum instead.

This is to YOU.

Don’t stop trying. Don’t stop being.

Keep trying to find your place in this world. Keep trying to find what good you can do. Don’t let the shadows of civilisation convince you that there’s no warmth. Don’t let people’s treatment of you make you see yourself differently or less. Their actions and their words belong to them.

You know yourself better than anyone else in the world.

You’ve been there for you from the beginning.

You fed yourself when you were hungry. You got yourself that extra blanket when you were cold. You wiped your own tears away when you were sad.

Don’t you realise how amazing you are?

Don’t you realise how beautifully complex a human being you were born from the beginning? Your abilities are endless, your potential is fathomless- anything is possible.

The point is, when the world gets shitty and the people get shittier- take that breath. Take that god damn breath and then another.